Drivers in Texas will face a few changes on and off roadways this month with several new roadrelated laws going into effect Sept. 1.
This year’s Texas Legislature passed hundreds of laws spanning a number of areas and industries. On Sept. 1, a total of 774 laws passed by the legislature will go into effect. Several of these apply to auto and traffic laws and proceedings around the state, better enabling temporary speed limit changes, improving toll payment notifications and permitting pedestrians to use roads in certain situations.
House Bill 1885: speed limit changes
HB 1885, signed into law this June, empowers local Texas Department of Transportation engineers to temporarily change speed limits for a portion of a road or highway without approval from the statewide transportation commissioners. The variable speed limit can be applied during roadway construction and maintenance, as well as during inclement weather conditions like heavy fog, ice or rain.
The altered speed limit would be in effect only when it’s posted on signs notifying drivers of the change, and it can’t be lower than 10 miles under the regular speed limit.
“It could be a mobile digital sign that you see, oftentimes used on a trailer, it could be on any of the TxDOT signs, it could actually be a physical sign that is laid over one of the original — it’s whatever communicates to the drivers speed limit change as per state law,” State Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, said.
House Bill 2170: toll payment notifications
During this year’s regular legislative session, lawmakers filed at least nine toll-related bills, including proposals that sought to cap fines and fees, eliminate misdemeanor charges for delinquent users and make toll roads free to use once the bonds issued to build them are repaid. Only one of those bills, HB 2170, became law, requiring toll entities to notify users with electronic tags when an automatic payment is rejected.
Activist groups said the new law will be an improvement but expressed frustration with the lack of a statewide limit on how high fees and fines can go. Toll operators said they are receptive to user experience issues but have argued for keeping harsher penalties to deter nonpayment in the past.
House Bill 1277: pedestrian road use
Under existing law, pedestrians can walk on the left side of the road, facing oncoming traffic if there’s no sidewalk available. HB 1277 will now allow pedestrians to do the same when sidewalks are obstructed or unsafe.
The bill was developed as a result of a Feb. 2021 incident during Winter Storm Uri that social justice advocates said was “racially motivated.” As snow and ice made sidewalks and roads impassable, 18-year-old Rodney “R.J.” Reese was arrested by Plano police officers for walking on a road while heading home from work. The Black teen was charged with a Class C misdemeanor, accused of violating a section of the state’s transportation code and spending a night in jail before charges were dropped. Brian L. Owsley, a law professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas, said state legislators must balance concerns for both pedestrian safety and pedestrians’ need to get from one location to another. He said that police officers should apply “common sense and discretion” in enforcing laws rather than strictly adhering to the letter of the law.
“This is about sensible policing,” echoed June Jenkins, president of the Collin County chapter of the NAACP, which supported HB 1277.
